


Emperor of the Beasts

by manic_intent



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, M/M, That AU where the Shimada brothers are actually dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 14:37:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7175924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blackwatch wasn’t the worst gig Jesse had been in, not by a long shot. Couldn’t fault three square meals, decent pay and board. Nobody had tried to arrest him in <i>years</i>, neither. A man could get used to the cushy life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Emperor of the Beasts

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【守望先锋/OW】【藏麦】Emperor of the Beasts 百兽之王 By manic_intent PWP 一发完](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13158540) by [batcat229](https://archiveofourown.org/users/batcat229/pseuds/batcat229)



> Some background: When Overwatch was first announced I didn’t really pay much attention to it. Blizzard games are awesome, and usually I give them a chance, but Overwatch’s not my kind of game at all (I prefer RPGs and/or games with story campaigns). But then the short films came out, and then the Korean artists I was already following on Twitter seemed to all convert to McHanzo en masse, and here we go. :o Think this is the first time I’ve ended up in a fandom despite not playing the game… 
> 
> I love Westerns, esp the Clint Eastwood ones. And Dragons is my favorite Overwatch short film, so on hindsight it’s probably not surprising that I ship McHanzo. ^^;; 
> 
> That being said, when I first watched Dragons, I was under the impression that Hanzo and Genji were actual dragons who chose to take human form. I read the lore after and was like ??? yakuza what??? and yeah. :( So this AU is an Actual Dragons!AU, taking place before Reyes and Morrison had their throw down.

Blackwatch wasn’t the worst gig Jesse had been in, not by a long shot. Couldn’t fault three square meals, decent pay and board. Nobody had tried to arrest him in _years_ , neither. A man could get used to the cushy life. 

Thing was, up until recently, Blackwatch had been kinda mostly sorta _functional_. Sure, it was the fucked up, take-no-prisoners, unashamedly unstable sibling of those sparkly clean do-gooders in the main Overwatch gig, but it _worked_. Reyes had a pretty good finger on the valve and he was every bit of harsh where it mattered. Blackwatch fell in line, if reluctantly and sometimes only after stabbing a live body or two, but it was a team. Now, though, it always seemed like Jesse couldn’t even light a smoko in HQ without some asshole trying’na yoke him into some breed of politics or another. 

He’d taken on this make-work mission out of sheer self-defense. After all, if Jesse had to stay on one more day and listen to people yapping about _rightful promotion_ and _stable leadership_ he was gonna go postal, which was just asking to get reamed by Reyes, and not even in a fun way. 

So. 

Japan. 

Jesse didn’t mind Japan, but if he’d had a choice, it wasn’t someplace that he would’ve gone to see for the hell of it. Outside of Tokyo, nobody understood him, he stood out like a sore thumb, and even Blackwatch had trouble muscling in a special permit for Jesse to bring Peacekeeper with him. The day he’d worn it out in public in his holster like he always did, he’d started some kinda mass panic. If Jesse hadn’t hastily lit out of the vicinity, he’d probably have broken his no-arrest streak, Blackwatch op or no Blackwatch op. Seems the Japanese _really_ didn’t do guns.

And now he was closing in on his mark in some forest that was popularly called the Suicide Forest. _Delightful_. 

Grumbling to himself as he strapped his holster back on his hip, Jesse pushed past the thick undergrowth between tightly packed trees. In the silence of Aokigahara, even his breaths sounded like hoarse bellows, and every step seemed to crackle and reverberate. He might as well paint a goddamned target on his back. So much for any element of surprise. 

Assuming that the lead was right, and his target had _really_ chosen to go to ground here. 

An hour or so in and Jesse was annoyed, potentially lost, and had finally come across a trail and a large black sign. Unfortunately, it had no map and was in Japanese, so Jesse took a picture of the damned thing and fed it into his Blackwatch-issue smartphone. It beeped for a second, processing the text, then spat out a translation on the screen.

“Your life is a… precious gift from your parents… think about them and the rest of your family… you don’t have to suffer alone. What the fuck?” 

Well. That was depressing. 

Jesse briefly contemplated following the trail out, getting a drink and telling Blackwatch to kindly fuck itself and grow up, and- Wait. Was that movement? 

He turned on his heel, ready to draw, and blinked as he took in the stranger leaning against a tree, further down and just off the path. The stranger was Japanese, probably in his thirties, with long black hair caught at his skull with a yellow ribbon. He was wearing a black kimono with metal bracers, and he had a fucking _bow and arrow_ getup slung over his back. He was also rocking metal-plated boots and a goddamned _gourd_ hitched to his belt like something right out of a history vid, which could mean only one thing.

“You’re some kinda… cosplayer, ain’tcha?” Jesse hazarded. 

He’d learned about cosplay after that one time when Reyes had left him to babysit the new recruits, and nobody was really sure whether Jesse or the recruits had been more traumatised by the experience. The stranger raised his eyebrows. Cosplay getup aside, he was kinda hot. Maybe that was the point. Hot people had made a nice living out of dressing up since forever, right? Jesse could appreciate it. 

“Who are you?” the stranger asked bluntly, in accented but fluent English. 

“I’m the police. Sorta. Got a lead on some bigshot gangster, name of uh,” Jesse checked the brief on his phone, “Hanzo… Sheemother?” 

The photos supplied were as unhelpful as always: all blurry pics of some Japanese guy in a suit. Apparently he had a dragon tattoo down one arm, which was _such_ a helpful detail, given that people didn’t usually walk around topless in Japan, and Jesse didn’t have x-ray vision. Usually, life wasn’t this hard. Blackwatch tended to get gigs where the primary target was sitting pretty somewhere fucking obvious, like inside some weaponised fortress or something. Figured that everyone had passed on _this_ gig but Jesse. Stupid Jesse. 

“ _Shimada_ ,” the stranger corrected, pulling a sour face. 

“Right, well, seems he’s hidin’ out in here, though Gawd knows why. Takes all sorts. Uh, is he famous 'round here or something?”

“The Shimada clan is a well-known yakuza clan,” the stranger said dryly. “And you are not from the police.” 

“I’m Overwatch. Kinda Overwatch, nohow. We’ve been takin’ care of them gangster ops. Just missin’ the boss.” 

“Hanzo Shimada is no longer head of the Shimada clan. Go home, stranger. You are not welcome here, and I will not warn you again.” 

“I ain’t interested in life advice from someone dressed up as some cartoon character,” Jesse growled, which was as far as he got. The stranger’s body blurred and seemed to _disintegrate_ , flowing down into his shadow, which arched out of the ground in a wave of blurring scales, of blue fire that flowed _through_ the trees, away into the gloom. In the empty space that remained, Jesse could suddenly smell the prickly onset of a storm.

A dragon _tattoo_? Shimada was a goddamned, honest-to-Gods _dragon_. Fuck _that_ for a lark.

#

Normal people at this point would’ve probably called their handlers, given said handlers an earful and resigned on the spot. Jesse, however, had probably been dropped a couple of times when he was a baby. Or maybe all that prolonged exposure to Blackwatch’s bitching and infighting had already kicked him off the deep bend, and he just hadn’t noticed until now. He left Aokigahara, very calmly, got in contact with the Overwatch outpost in Tokyo, and just as calmly got a pulse rifle sent over. Because Peacekeeper had served him well all this time, but when you’re hunting big game, sometimes you have’ta bring out the big guns.

On one hand, if he died in Aokigahara, he was probably in good company. On the other hand, Jesse McCree was possibly about to bag himself a fucking _dragon_. He’d never seen the point of beheading furry animals, stuffing them and mounting the heads on plaques before, but a dragon? Hell _yeah_. Maybe they could fix it up over the _gate_. That’d show them Overwatch boy scouts who the cool kids were. 

His happy buzz was slightly ruined when Reyes called him half an hour into Aokigahara. “McCree. Heard you made a request for a prototype pulse rifle.” 

“Eyup. Don’t worry, boss. I ain’t gonna break it.” Jesse hefted the rifle in his arms. It didn’t fit him as well as his revolver, but it was gonna have to serve. 

“Morrison told me to remind you not to cause yet another international incident.”

“Aw man, how was I t’know people would freak the fuck out if I walked outta the hotel with my holster on? I didn’t even start _shootin’_.” 

“Never mind that. You’ve never made ordinance requests before. Is there something I should know?”

The bossman had always been way too sharp for his own good. “Uh nope. Nothing’s up. Everything’s fine. I’m still workin’ on it.” 

Reyes sighed. “McCree, when I put forward the recommendation for you to join Blackwatch-“ Ahh. Lecture time. Jesse tuned Reyes out as he circled around one of the many caves that were sunk into the undergrowth. Maybe he should’ve asked for infrared goggles as well. Or brought some kinda bait. What did dragons eat? Or was that why Shimada was hiding out here? Did he eat the people who came here to end it all? Jesse wasn’t sure if that was gross or tragic or kinda awesome. Maybe all three.

Maybe he _was_ going batshit crazy. Fuck Blackwatch. Jesse was seriously gonna quit. Soon. 

“-and I expect results, do you hear me?” 

Lecture over. “Yessir.” Reyes hung up, and Jesse took the earpiece out and stuffed it into a pocket. 

Night crept in by degrees, and turned the forest pitch dark. Jesse had brought a torch that fit against his hat band, and thankfully, he wasn’t the sort to be scared of the dark. Ghosts? Pssh. The biggest assholes in the world, in Jesse’s experience, tended to be living people. Still, after an hour or so of awkwardly falling on his face by tripping over the uneven ground, Jesse was starting to regret not having called off the hunt while it was still light out. 

As such, when he actually _did_ meet his first ghost, Jesse was exasperated, muddy, bruised, and Not In The Mood. 

Whatever it was, it floated high among the branches, indistinct, a pale smudge that distorted reality around it into a vaguely human shape. It looked neither male nor female, and was dressed in a long white shroud, under which spidery fingers and toes drifted, twitching nervously. There was no face under its mass of dark hair, as it turned to look at Jesse. 

“All right,” Jesse said wearily. “You go your way, darlin’, and I’ll go mine.” 

The apparition drifted closer, flickering from one hanging branch to another, and it occurred belatedly to Jesse why it was staying at that particular height, with its head tilted so oddly. That was a lynching height, that was. The ghost was flicking through spaces that had been bookmarked by death. 

“No closer,” Jesse warned, as the ghost got ever closer. The first pulse shot did nothing, nor the second, and then Jesse dropped the rifle and drew Peacekeeper, as the spectre drifted to the closest tree, its smooth, featureless face bunching into creases, revealing a toothy grin- 

Something whistled in the air, and an arrow pinned the ghost to the bark. It writhed, mouth open in a soundless cry, then the arrow glowed _blue_ , and the ghost was twisting, burning up; then it was a point of blue light, streaking upwards into the night. 

Jesse breathed out shakily, looking around, but the torch scanned only trees. “Didn’t have’ta do that,” he said out aloud. 

“On nights like these, the _yurei_ are hungry.” 

Jesse couldn’t pinpoint where the voice was coming from. More magic? “And how do dragons get, on nights like these?” 

“Pensive. Which is why you are still alive.” 

“Ouch. You had’ta go and hurt my feelings.” Jesse noiselessly picked up the rifle, trying to scan the trees. Further up, maybe, on the branches? 

“Go away, _gaijin_. Or I’ll do worse than that.” 

“Aww, now you’re just makin’ me feel all _special_.” This got him a low and exasperated growl, an inhuman, guttural sound that shook the _ground itself_ under Jesse’s feet.

All right. Maybe, just maybe, Jesse was in over his head. But he was committed. He backed off slowly, trying to watch his feet. If he could find a place where the trees thinned out some, he’d have a better shot. 

“A man who knows no fear is a rare man,” Shimada said, somewhere behind him. “And a foolish one.” The undergrowth abruptly lit up, in a snaking path through the trees. _Fireflies_ , Jesse realized, with a blink, all yellow pinpoints of light. “Go. I won’t be merciful again.” 

“Think I’ve heard that before,” Jesse said aloud, but met only silence and the deep dark. Hell. It wasn’t like he was gonna be able to find anything out here like this, or do much more than break his own neck. He went.

#

Over the next week, Jesse ran into park rangers, random tourists, and once, some kid trying to kill himself. Jesse had frogmarched _that_ one out of there and into the village, leaving him with some folks and making him promise to call the helpline. Poor kid couldn’t have been older than fourteen.

Most times, though, he had the silent forest to himself. Shimada didn’t show up, and lugging the pulse rifle around was starting to get old. Also, Reyes was getting pissy. 

He’d give it one more night, then he’d call home and ‘fess up. Jesse marked the way back to one of the trails with Overwatch biofluorescent stamps, sticking them onto the trees as he went into the forest, waiting for nightfall. As before, it crept up on him quickly.

No ghosts showed up, though. Maybe they’d given up, or maybe the dragon had gotten to the rest of them. Jesse spent a couple of hours going in circles, until he’d used up all the stamps and it was either head back or spend the night in the dank gloom. With a sigh, he lit up a cigar, sucked in an acrid mouthful of smoke, and kept going. Why not. It wasn’t like Jesse had the imagination to be properly scared shitless by haunted trees anyway. 

He’d smoked the cigar down to a stub by the time he came across the house. It was a neat little building with a sloped roof, and all its walls, even the outer ones, seemed to be made of pale paper, each inscribed with black brushwork at the centre. The house seemed to waver briefly as Jesse ground the stub out under his heel and approached, as though he was looking on two layers of reality, one full of trees, one with the house, but it was solid enough as he got up onto the landing and pushed the door open with a foot. 

Inside, the house was lit by floating paper lanterns in a violent array of colours, bumping against the roof and unmoored. The ground of woven mats creaked under his heavy step, and Jesse made the executive decision to sling the rifle over his back and draw Peacekeeper instead. If he was gonna be close fighting indoors, nothing was gonna beat his revolver. 

The house hadn’t looked big on the outside, but within, Jesse walked through three empty rooms before he got to some kind of large, high-ceilinged hall, its paper walls chased with a huge mural. Two dragons looped around each other, immediately to Jesse’s right, then fought, further down, and finally, tore each other to shreds. 

Charming. 

Near the end of the hall, the dragon sat cross-legged on a bench, the bow across his thighs, waiting. 

“You let me find your house,” Jesse told him. 

“So you are not as stupid as you seem.”

“Got bored of watchin’ me stumble ‘round the forest?” 

“I am not looking for a fight. You are not a good man, Jesse McCree. But you are _trying_ to be. I can respect that.”

“Well _I’m_ lookin’ for a fight,” Jesse said, though he was conscious that it sounded halfhearted. After all, he hadn’t yet even opened fire. 

“Are you?” Shimada uncurled to his feet, setting his bow aside, and his _feet_ … those weren’t metal boots at all. The soles had split and lengthened, turning four-toed and claw-tipped, the talons digging lightly into the ground. Dragonscale only _looked_ metallic. 

“All right, maybe I’m curious. You’re the first dragon I ever did see.” 

“And you are not afraid.” Shimada was approaching, all silent steps, so very deliberate. 

“The hell are you using a bow and arrows if you’re a _dragon_?” 

“Archery is an art. It is not crude, like your guns.” 

“No need to be insultin'.” Jesse, however, flicked on the safety, and holstered Peacekeeper as Shimada circled around him. For whatever reason, Shimada had bared one shoulder, revealing an intricate dragon tattoo over his whole arm, but instead of admiring that, Jesse found his eyes drawn to the dusky nipple on Shimada’s broad chest. And hell, those _abs_.

“Interesting.” Fingertips grazed Jesse’s back, dragging over his spine. Under Jesse’s feet, his all-too-human shadow was encircled by something far bigger, a great swash of ink that coiled away and across the floor. “So what _are_ you here for, Jesse McCree, now that you have put your weapon away?” 

“Thinkin’ about it.” 

Shimada made a low, harsh sound - laughter? Jesse wasn’t so sure. “You are a troublemaker, I think. Kneel.” 

Normally, that would’ve been Jesse’s cue to laugh, say something sarcastic, maybe start punching. Or shooting. Now, though, he knelt, though he smirked up at Shimada as blunt fingers tipped up his chin, then pushed off his hat. “Hey, watch it,” Jesse started to complain, then he could only stare, as Shimada’s tattoos seemed to fade into metallic, greenish scales, then back to ink. The ‘fingers’ that curled around the back of Jesse’s skull were growing longer, and ended with hard talons. 

“I seem to be fond of troublemakers,” Shimada said, possibly to himself, Jesse wasn’t sure. 

“Lucky me.” Ah, what the hell. He was gonna quit Blackwatch sooner or later anyway. Might as well go out with all guns blazing. 

Jesse loosed Shimada’s belt, taking it off and tossing it aside, pouches and gourd and all, and as Shimada merely stared down at him, expressionless, Jesse shrugged and worked on the rest of his kit. Shimada was wearing some sort of weird white loincloth thing rather than the kinda underwear that Jesse was used to, but with the right sort of motivation, Jesse had always been a quick study. Thankfully, the scales didn’t go further than Shimada’s upper thighs, and his uncut cock was a nice fit in Jesse’s palm, long and curved, thick enough that Jesse knew sucking it down was gonna make his jaw ache.

The talons in his hair tightened warningly when Jesse tried a teasing lick. Giving in, Jesse fit what he could into his mouth and got his good hand on the rest, prosthetic fingers closed carefully over Shimada’s hip. Talons scratched against the floor to either side of his knees and Shimada purred, a rumbling and serrated sound that made the ground heave under their feet, _God_ , this was crazy and Jesse was gagging for it, panting as he tried to take down another inch, stretching his throat.

“Touch yourself,” Shimada growled, in a voice that was nowhere near human. “ _Not_ that hand,” he added, as Jesse unclenched metal fingers from Shimada’s hip. He ground an inch into Jesse’s throat, making him gag as he fumbled with his belt buckle, and then they somehow faltered into rhythm, Jesse tugging at himself, close to desperate, claws in his hair, mouth stuffed full. This close, Shimada didn’t smell remotely human, either; he smelled like the rain, like thunder. Dimly, Jesse was vaguely aware that he was choking out broken-down moans around Shimada’s cock, sucking with sloppy eagerness, his hand on himself too dry, nearly painful, not enough. Above, Shimada rumbled again, like a gathering storm, getting lazy, going slow. 

Talons curled warningly again when Jesse moaned and tried to bob his head, holding him down. Didn’t matter. Jesse was already close, his hand jittery, wired up, and when Shimada drawled, “Come, then,” it was enough, somehow. Jesse spilled over his fingers and let out a muffled whine that Shimada cut off with a rolling thrust. 

“I didn’t tell you to stop touching yourself,” Shimada whispered, and now Jesse could see where this was going. He should’ve known. After all, just about every story Jesse knew about dragons was really about greed. 

Shimada forced Jesse to rub one more out before he deigned to finish, growling, pushed in as deep as Jesse could comfortably take, and afterwards, in the half-light, as Jesse tried to catch his breath on the mats, Shimada wiped a daub of come from his jaw with apparent tenderness. Jesse knew better. The dragon’s eyes were pitiless. 

“You are mine,” said the dragon, as talons curled lightly around Jesse’s throat. “Tomorrow morning you will run, but someday, you will come back to me.” Shimada kissed him between the eyes, then on his mouth, a hungry touch that seemed to _burn_ , marking Jesse down to his bones.

#

“Didn’t find nothin’,” Jesse told Reyes at the debrief. “Thought I did, though. That’s why I asked for the rifle. But hey, I returned it, nothin’ broken yeah?”

Reyes scowled at him from behind his desk. The passing year had etched bitterness into his eyes, and his mouth was, as ever, drawn into a hard line. He was dressed up in the standard black uniform, with the logo over an arm, as was just about every other sad sack in this outfit. Not Jesse, though. They could pry his ten-gallon hat, cowboy boots and chaps from his cold, dead body, in his opinion. Life was too short not to be comfortable.

“Looks like Hanzo Shimada defected, years ago.” Reyes said finally. “Our source was outdated.” 

“Aw, shucks. ‘Least I had a nice holiday.” 

“Dismissed, McCree.” 

Jesse slunk out of Reyes’ office with relief. Now to find himself a tall drink of something nicely alcoholic. Moseying down the corridors towards the nearest canteen, Jesse nearly walked right into one of Overwatch’s weird new recruits, some maybe-or-not omnic that was supposedly called Genji. Japanese model, maybe? It did look like it. 

Genji stared at Jesse for a long moment, then he stepped out of Jesse’s way. Katana strapped to the back. Definitely Japanese. Well. Jesse had picked _something_ up over the past week. “Oh-hey-yo.” 

“Please don’t,” Genji said, in a clipped tone. 

So much for trying to be friendly. “See you around,” Jesse said, about to walk past, and paused when Genji caught his shoulder lightly, leaning in. 

“You’ve been marked.” 

“What?” 

A metal-tipped finger tapped against his mouth, and Jesse jerked back, curling his lip, his hand flashing towards Peacekeeper. Genji merely stared back at him evenly. “There’s a reason why most human stories about dragons end in death. Watch your back.” Without waiting for a reply, Genji kept on going, and instinct kept Jesse’s hand poised over Peacekeeper until the possibly-an-omnic was out of sight. 

Shit. Jesse fumbled a cigar out of his pouch, and patted his pockets down for matches. Maybe it _was_ high time that he quit.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: manic_intent  
> tumblr: manic-intent


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